Originally Posted by AnthonyG

Bike sizing for small riders has been pretty terrible from all manufacturers for quite a while but it did used to be better. Georgina Terry didn't invent small sized bikes and to be honest in my opinion she didn't actually do that good a job.
That's why I referenced a Giant ARX 24 and not Terry bikes.

Vintage bikes for Juveniles/small adults used to have 24" wheels, 140-150mm cranks, 71-72 degree seat tube angles, low bottom brackets and short front centre distances.
Giant KNOW's how to do it, they just don't.
Why?
Well its complicated, and lets not rule out manufacturing economics as a prime reason, yet, overestimating the size of Westerners has to be right up there as well.
I'm a short Western male at 152cm, yet, there are a LOT of Western women in this World the same height or maybe just a fraction taller and this is before we talk about all the Asian heritage people living in the Western World these days.

Bike manufacturers have missed the mark in terms of the size of their customers by a LONG way.
They have really missed the mark badly yet its the realities of manufacturing economics and precedence that gets in the way of fixing anything.
The truth is that there is a HUGE market for "asian" size people in the west that the bike manufacturers just REFUSE to service.
It's head in the sand stuff.